This is my symphony

The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place
Alan Bradley
Random House
release date: January 30, 2018

It’s certainly no secret that I have a little crush on Flavia de Luce. How could I not? She’s brilliant, confident, beguiling, and misunderstood. (I’m pretty sure I’ve reviewed all of her books on this blog!)) I couldn’t have been happier that Flavia returned to Buckshaw in Thrice the Brinded Cat after her brief interlude at Miss Bodycoate’s in Chimney Sweepers. While I’ve never gone on a Flavia adventure I haven’t loved, it was good to be home.

In The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place, the 9th Flavia mystery, Flavia, her sisters Feely and Daffy, and Dogger have gone on holiday to recover from a death in the family and spend time together before Buckshaw is sold. The girls will scatter in different directions (Flavia to London to live with Aunt Felicity), Dogger and Mrs. Mullet released from service. But while boating on a lazy river near Volesthorpe, Dogger points out St.-Mildred’s-in-the-Marsh, where just two years before one Canon Whitbread had poisoned three members of his congregation with tainted communion wine. And quick as you can say cyanide and strychnine, wouldn’t you know–Flavia pulls a corpse out of the river.

There’s the usual eccentric cast of characters. A flamboyant actress, Poppy Mandrill, who directs village plays in her retirement. The nosy Mrs. Palmer, innkeeper-cum-poet. A gambling funeral director. And even a beautiful old flame from Dogger’s past, Miss Claire Tetlock.

The plot and cast of characters are pretty much what readers have come to expect in an Alan Bradley novel. I have a pair of fuzzy slippers I slip on the moment I come home from work. They’re not fashionable designer slippers and my feet get what they expect: cozy comfort.  And just like those slippers, the plot of this novel is as familiar and comfortable as the ones that preceded it.

After the dramatic cliffhangers of the last two novels, the ending of The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place is a happy one. Or maybe promising is more accurate. In any case, Bradley leads us to believe that we are about to set off on a Flavia adventure of an entirely  different sort in book #10.